Preparing for 2021 when you don't know what to do

The pandemic has exposed the flaw in our understanding of the business world and our ability to adapt as organisations. The fields of market scanning, shifting industry dynamics and becoming more agile are now a critical part of how business can better cope, adapt timeously, and take advantage of renewed opportunities.

"Even though assumptions and predictions of where the pandemic will take us have dissipated, the evaporated truth hasn't yet been replaced with anything concrete," said Herman Singh, CEO of Future Advisory, adjunct professor at the UCT Graduate School of Business, and key thought leader. "Companies have to become introspective and question whether to pivot, invest money, or to push forward with a struggling business model. What they want answered is at what point do they make this decision and who can they look to for guidance. It requires a reinvention last seen with the bursting of the dotcom bubble."

As a starting point, companies must test their business models, experiment and innovate, at the same time measuring results. It is a short-sprint approach and lean start-up model that has proved to be highly successful, but must be coupled with a change in mindset, agility and even curiosity for an uncertain future.

"Businesses need to really question what digital transformation is and if their technology investments are in fact helping to generate revenue. If what they have in place is not agile or innovative, they simply won’t be adaptable. Ultimately, it is a shift in mindset from the built to last way of thinking, to one that allows you to address your immediate challenges and ensures the technology you deploy is adaptable and agile enough to move with whichever business model you decide on," said Craigh Stuart, Systems Engineering Manager SADC & WECA at Nutanix.

But it is a gargantuan mind-shift and Paul Ruinaard, Regional Sales Director at Nutanix Sub-Saharan Africa, warns: "Even as vendors, we need to align to new customer demands and change how we sell our technologies – or we run the risk of going out of business. It is just not feasible for any company to stick to the same business model they have for the last 20 years; it is bound to lead to failure. Agility is no longer a way to do business, it is instead the future premise of all successful business."

In its next Connect Webinar taking place on Thursday, 29 October, Nutanix and Professor Singh will explore the mental shifted needed to adapt your business in this changing world.

What can the audience expect from joining?

• How to read signs early and respond to disruptive players in the market.
• How to build resilience and adaptability in your organisation and what sets successful pivots apart.
• Advice on how to lead teams better in crisis in the future.

"In this world market, scanning is essential as it entails looking for signals and drivers and building a business radar that scans and provides a roadmap on how to lead teams to a lean start-up mode. But it isn’t easy, so we need to start talking about this shift – which is exactly what we hope to achieve at our next webinar," ends Singh.

Click here to register for this insightful online event on Thursday, 29 October at 1pm-2pm. It's free.